Netflix opens cell sport studio in Helsinki

Netflix opened a second cell sport studio in Helsinki, Finland, because the leisure firm pushes additional into gaming.

Marko Lastikka, a gaming veteran, will function the studio director for the brand new Netflix Gaming studio, mentioned Amir Rahimi, vp of sport studios at Netflix, in an announcement.

It’s an indication that Netflix hasn’t misplaced its will to push into gaming regardless of cutbacks in different elements of the corporate, introduced on by the worldwide financial downturn. Recreation veteran Mike Verdu began the enlargement in mid-2021 as a part of a plan to supply extra leisure to Netflix’s subscribers.

“That is one other step in our imaginative and prescient to construct a world-class video games studio that may deliver quite a lot of pleasant and deeply partaking unique video games — with no advertisements and no in-app purchases — to our a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of members around the globe,” Rahimi mentioned.

Rahimi mentioned Netflix selected Helsinki, the place it has already acquired the cell sport studio Subsequent Video games as a result of it’s house to a few of the greatest sport expertise on the planet. It’s the house of studios resembling Supercell and Rovio.

“This will probably be a video games studio that we construct from scratch, and our second video games studio in Helsinki alongside Subsequent Video games, which grew to become a part of Netflix earlier this yr,” Rahimi mentioned. “Together with Evening College Studio and Boss Struggle Leisure, these 4 studios, every with completely different strengths and focus areas, will develop video games that may go well with the various tastes of our members.”

Rahimi mentioned Netflix’s push into video games remains to be in its early days.

“We now have far more work to do to ship an incredible video games expertise on Netflix,” he mentioned. “Making a sport can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily constructing the muse of our video games studios in our first yr, and look ahead to sharing what we produce within the coming years.”